


idolatry

by Dragoneisha



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Idol AU, Idol Groups, Invasion, M/M, Meet-Cute, Producer Dave Strider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25823923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragoneisha/pseuds/Dragoneisha
Summary: Betty Crocker doesn't go for baking. Instead, she picks up on another of Earth's great cultural exports - the pop idol group.Twelve trolls, sent as an advance guard and scouting sect to lower the reservations and ferret out the details of Earth and it's resources, are the world's biggest hit.Their frontman, Karkat Vantas, who is not a lead singer and stop calling him that, falls headfirst into a sparking rivalry with some chucklefuck named Strider who won't stop showing up. But he's the only human who's ever been able to match wits on the conversational battleground - and he's get a job to do. It can't become anything more...
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





	idolatry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Parsonsaj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parsonsaj/gifts).



> Written on the specifications of the lovely parsonsaj! Definitely one of the best ideas I've ever had pitched to me. I did my best to do it justice. :)

“ _Yours, only yours,_

_On this fickle Earth and_

_Bloodpusher’s roar,_

_It’s Kismesis Prancin’!”_

As Eridan half-bows over the keyboard, beringed fingers flying from one key to the next, the roar of the crowd rivals the speaker’s incessant throb. It beats in Karkat’s chest enough to shake him to his core. Fuck the pump of his bloodpusher - the only thing moving his disgustingly red blood through his body is the thrum of the crowd’s energy, the lyrics shouted back at him loud enough to peel back his carapace like the air whipping at his body as he rides a musclebeast bareback. He bounces on his toes, one fist in the air, and then backs up.

His shoulderblades meet a strong, slender pair, about the same height as him. Good - he hadn’t looked back to check on the choreography. He spins right, an she turns left, and Nepeta goes into a front hand-spring, her tail catching the mic from his right hand. She springs up, bouncy, bubbly, and face stretched in a smile, taking place as the frontrunner as she crows the wordless next verse.

_“Oooh, oooh, oooh, ah-ah,”_ Nepeta sings, hips side to side as her hands curl by her ears. Tavros hits the synth hard before her next one. _“Oooh, ooh ooh, ah-ah-aah~!”_

Feferi and Aradia bound up next to her, joining her in the next verses. Karkat turns his focus back to the background work - he drops his hands to his knees so Sollux can spring up and roll over his back with enough support to keep the gangly fucker from hitting the ground. In another few beats, he has to be in the center, but he can make it there. Instead, he looks out over the roiling mass that is the crowd, looking into a hundred hands, a million hearts, and about two thousand separate phone cameras. 

He’s panting, sweating like Equius, and he nearly misses his cue, he’s so wrapped up in looking out over their fans. The flash of as many phone cameras that could have physically been smuggled in here nearly blinds him, and he licks his nubby, triangular teeth, a little lost in the moment. 

Vriska sweeps past him just in time - spotlight hog - and he remembers his choreography, darting over to link hands with Sollux and pull them together, shoulder to shoulder, arms up - and Equius on his other side, pushing him up - there’s Eridan over from the keyboard, and he’s up, leg extended so Terezi can grasp his ankle -

With a _pop_ and an explosion of showering sparks, the song ends, Karkat lifted on a flurry of hands and posing for the end scene. The crowd goes wild.

He doesn’t even remember how he gets down - just rushes to the last standing mic and shouts into it to be heard over the last notes of the song resung by an adoring crowd.  
  
“That’s it for us! Goodnight, you freaking lunatics!” he shouts.

And that’s that, the ground ferrying back inside with wide smiles and waving arms as the speakers play them out. Eridan bows, two, three times, before making it in. Vriska has to be dragged back, Kanaya and Terezi each holding an ear. Karkat, thankfully, is one of the first in. And just like that, the sound dies behind insulated walls, and the concert is over.

__

“Fuck our choreographer,” Eridan groans, immediately diving for the sink to scrape off what’s gotta be a billion layers of makeup and face putty. “Who the fuck decided a lift was a good idea? Even for Kar! No ‘ffence, Kar.”

Now that the concert is over, the adrenaline of the experience is melting away. Apparently, the frozen treat that is the exhilaration of performance had iced over the windshield of a whole lot of fucking back pain, and boy, Karkat can see through that bastard now. 

“None fucking taken. I want to keep my feet on the crotchrotting ground.” As his shoulders hit the blissfully soft and _horizontal_ couch, Karkat rubs his throat, hoping to decompress. He feels like wrigglebugs have crawled into every inch of aching muscle and made their homes there. He feels like he’s been hit by a scuttlebuggy. He feels like shit, basically, and his popping joints mean everyone else has to know it too. “Oh, yeah, he’s _compact_ . Definitely a good idea to _lift him up_ , fucking mutant doesn’t have any feelings about it. And if he does we’ll just rip his head off, he’ll make good grubloaf -”

Kanaya’s blissful, slightly cool grasper places itself on Karkat’s brow. Any other time, he swears he’d gnaw it off her wrist, but he’s too tired to do much more than sigh about it. 

“Karkat, you know we don’t think of you that way.” She’s a little firm about it. He refuses to think on why, and thus, the why doesn’t exist, how about that! “You’re our friend.”

“Yeah, and our frontrunner,” Terezi snickers, shoveling huge handfuls of hotel mints into her mouth and her pocket at once. Karkat doesn’t even have to look to know that’s what she’s doing. Every time Equius disappears into the shower post-concert, Terezi immediately goes for everything edible, while Vriska pockets anything not nailed down. Tavros used to whine about it, but seeing as he’s conked out in his chair right now, Karkat doesn’t think he’s up for voicing his concerns about the poor cleaning humans that have to tidy up their mess. “Her Imperious Condescension wouldn’t execute the leader of the scouting force for nothing! Humans only let us in because you passed human blood tests, that’s using your mutation for the Empire if I’ve ever seen it.” A pause. “And I haven’t!”

Terezi cackles, and Sollux throws - something at her. Karkat doesn’t know. Kanaya started rubbing his temples and it’s really relaxing him, so he’s not going to bother looking at whatever they’re doing right now. 

“Bad joke,” Sollux says. “Joke sucked.”

“You suck,” Eridan says, butting in for no reason other than that he's Eridan. Nepeta giggles, uncomfortably close to Karkat. 

“Purrhaps our furless leader kneads a little encouragement!” Whatever the encouragement was, he wanted no part of it.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear all of those puns and get the hell out of here,” he says, turning his head to break Kanaya’s contact with his vulnerable softspots. She retracts her hands, allowing him to sit up and stretch. Ah, sweet couch. Unfortunately, Karkat needs some air, and some time away from these rampaging bozos.

“C’mon, Kar. We’ll be nice. I won’t even throw cold water on Eq this time.”

“Yeah, because that went so well last time,” Vriska snorts from where she’s fishing the glass beads out of a fake plant vase.

“The fuck did you just say to me?”

Karkat watches Feferi, nose in a magazine, look up, consider the two, and quietly exchange betting odds with Sollux. Nepeta lights up, flouncing over, and drags Terezi with her with a blue cybernetic tail wrapped around a skinny wrist. Karkat sneaks out before the fight starts, nodding to the ever-observing Aradia, and exits into the hall.

Oh, bliss. 

Karkat leans his heated shoulders against the cool wall, head tilting back. His horns bonk briefly against plaster, and it sends a strange ringing through his skull. He breathes out, long and low.

“Pop?”  
  
Karkat’s ear twitches. His face pulls into a sneer, and he raises a hand to bat away the man who’s snuck up on him. “Piss off,” he orders. “I’m not in the mood.”

“C’mon. Pop-pop some pop in your mouth, it fizzes and pops, pop star.”

Wow, that’s annoying. Karkat can’t help but crack an eye open. Is someone trying to pitch him a song again? It’s never good when anyone does that, and this would be a shitty way to do it. It’d be worse than the time Eridan and Equius and him all got serenaded when the girls locked them out on the balcony. That sucked a whole lot. Karkat, momentarily, mourns the life before Pop Boy entered his and ruined all experiences for him forever.

A human stands there, offering him some - fizzdrink of some kind. He can already taste the sugar. It’s tempting, but he isn’t a sugar addict, so he brushes it aside with half-curled knuckles and a sneer of distaste. “You trying to get me high or something?”

“This isn’t that kind of coke, but okay, message received,” the guy says, lifting his hands in surrender. Funny enough, that’s a universal bit of body language. Probably the only thing that keeps Karkat from bristling when he lowers his head like he’s showing off his horns. Doesn’t have horns. Doesn’t have that hangup. It was in the fucking communications training. Don’t freak out. “Extremely not local pop idol wants nothing to do with Earthling offerings of olive branches. Peace was never an option.”

Karkat’s ear flicks. Does he - does he know? Who is this guy? “Okay, for one, that isn’t a fucking olive branch. It’s a hallucinogenic substance you’re trying to drug me with. There is nothing remotely stick-like about it, and if there was, I wouldn’t want it anyway.” He looks at the human a little longer. Dark glasses, shaped almost like Equius’ welding goggles. Just a little thicker on the outside. Some faint freckles. Blonde hair. Sticky-outy ears, more than average for humans, with their stupid tiny round ears that look useless for hearing anything. He’s fine looking, Karkat guesses. But why is he here? “You know we don’t call you Earthlings, right? Way to stereotype, you lazy nookwhiff.”

“The only stick around here seems to be the one pretty firmly wedged up your ass, yeah,” the guy says, with a long drawl that sounds practiced. Karkat’s pusher <i>flips the fuck out</i>. 

“You keep any mention of my ass out of your mouth, you pretentious fuck. Who do you think you are?”

“Oh, touchy, touchy.” The very, very edge of a smirk tugs at the edge of Douchebag’s mouth. Karkat pays it no mind, pressing on.

“And - and another thing. Hey, asshole. The nineties called, they want their face gear back. We’re inside, why are you even wearing those? It isn’t for your eyes. Don’t pretend I don’t see the artfully tousled hair, the just-slightly-too-loose tie - I don’t have to be human to pick up the fake “I don’t give a fuck about my looks, I woke up this sexy” style. Could you be any more of a visible douchebag? It’s like every fuckboy coolblood threshie who’d never been told no in their life was pulled in by an event horizon of every bad human movie actor anyone has ever seen. Go back to your indie arthouse, you pallid fuckstick.”

The man nods, quietly. He pops open the soda that was supposed to be for Karkat. “So,” he says, nodding sagely, like some old wizard with like, a beard or whatever, “scale of one to ten. Ten being absolutely fuck yeah. I made an impression?”

Yeah, the others are better than this, actually. Karkat swings open the door, but pauses, just for a second. He looks at Douchebag, and Douchebag, presumably, looks at him. 

“I will forget you,” he says, like a promise, “the minute I shut this door.”

Karkat pulls the door shut behind him, only to hear bickers and squabbles die down as Feferi’s ringtone goes off. _Who Run the World._ Well, fuck. Guess it’s time to report to their superiors. One superior, really.

Over the next few days, Karkat does his best to put the strange meeting out of his mind. Especially because his fucking idol group are all messy bitches that live for drama, and he doesn’t want any of this getting to Eridan’s, or worse, Nepeta’s, auralclots. He’ll never live it down.

However, life is hell for him. It isn’t even a week later that he and Douchebag meet again - but this time, he gets a name out of the guy. 

___

Terezi isn’t allowed on interview shows anymore because she’s a terror, Eridan shouldn’t be, but he’s a seadweller, so he gets to, Equius hates being in the public eye, Nepeta’s a delight on camera but she doesn’t appeal to human sensibilities, something about submissive catgirls and somebody getting their nose clawed off? Kanaya wants nothing to do with the spotlight, Vriska’s great with it but she always says something horribly inflammatory, Gamzee is good in certain ways but has no interest, Sollux wouldn’t go on if you bound and gagged him, which they tried - there’s a bajillion reasons for the makeup of every interview they ever do. Ever since Aradia accidentally made a grown human cry, Karkat has been asked to be in every fucking one. He’s the relatable one.

Somehow.

Just because he has human’s blood - he loves to think about that! The mutation that should have gotten him killed? Yeah, great to have that always lingering in the back of his mind. Makes him approachable to a lesser species. Fantastic. Anyway, just because he’s got red blood, and he knows how to talk to people like a normal troll and not the psychedelic monstrosity that is everyone else he’s ever met, and alright, he’s a little personable and he’s definitely the leader, he gets to be on every interview show. He’s the frontman. He’s not the lead singer, even though every english-speaking human ever thinks he is. They’re an idol group. Everybody’s the fucking lead singer. They all sing. Fucking troll jesus christ. 

All this mental rambling, however, is just Karkat trying to zone the fuck out of him having to get on another show, and say the same shit, and field the same questions, and play dancing apebeast for a bunch of gape-mouthed primates with too much color and mutant blood. He doesn’t like doing it, and it makes him upset, and so he’s sitting backstage with his head in his hands.

Feferi’s doing a photoshoot with the other “nice” girls, so the other voice of reason, even if it’s a voice of very condescending, kind of bitchy reason, isn’t going to be on there. Sollux, as stated, doesn’t like to do public appearances, and it’s hard enough to drag the fucker on a stage, much less a soundstage. Everyone else is busy doing various other things that mean Karkat is going to be stuck in an interview between Eridan and Vriska. So yes, Karkat is zoning the fuck out backstage, because he’s about to bear witness to the worst thing Earth has ever seen - at least, until the Condesce’s fleet gets here.

“Aye. Ground Control to Major Tom.”

He’s going to piss himself with rage.

Karkat turns around with an open mouth and a diatribe already on his tongue. He doesn’t even know what he’ll say, but it is not going to be nice, that’s for damn sure. The shades and cowlick don’t even register until he’s already halfway through “Do you want to fuck my ass like your voice is fucking my aural clots, because if so, I’m filing a restraining order,” and he doesn’t have the wherewithal to stop talking, because he ends with, “you colossally irritating douchenozzle.”

“Okay, harsh,” says Douchenozzle, “but understandable. “I didn’t even go looking for you this time, homeslice. Is homeslice okay? Is that like, a troll word for sex too? Because you really flipped out in that broom closet, so I wanna make sure I’m not stepping on any toes.”

“I wish you were, it’d give me an excuse to hit you,” Karkat fires back. “What are you even doing here? Are you some freaky human stalker? Those are usually young women or guys with worse hygiene, but I’m all for outliers. I mean, look at me.”

Greeted with a shrug of a shoulder, Karkat can’t help but scowl. Douchenozzle continues to disappoint. “I had an interview too, man. I’m guest numero uno today. Just got off, didn’t expect to see short, dark, and handsome in my hallways.”

“Your peversions of language serve as insults both to my general self and the poor thinkpan that has to process them.” Karkat crosses his arms, chest puffed out. He’s a little short, but he’s been growing more, and after his second, proper adult molt - which he should be going through in the next sweep or so - he’ll have grown even further. It’s not - it doesn’t hurt his feelings. Shut up and fuck off. “Shut up and fuck off.”

“You’re Karkat, right? Lead vocalist?”

He’ll tear out his eyes. Just jam his thumb back in there and start prying. Who needs oculars anyway? 

“I am the frontman of SGRUB. I am not a fucking lead singer. To be a lead singer would be to imply everyone else is - oh yeah - backup singers. Considering I don't even trust them to have my back in a game of human ping-pong, I sure don’t trust them to have it in terms of our group. So no. I am not the fucking lead vocalist. Everybody vocalizes, turns out! But you know, I’ll give you one, infinitestimally small thing. _My name is Karkat_. You got that right! Congratulations! You want a medal? Code of honor? Maybe I can get the Condesce herself out here, get her on the line? She’ll give you a pat on the fucking back, you stalker freak -"

“It’s on your lanyard,” the guy says, gesturing vaguely to Karkat’s chest. “Like, as much as I’m enjoying watching you flip your lid so fucking hard it’s gonna hit the ceiling, your name’s written on your pass in here. Dunno why you need one, I mean. Not like you’re gonna get any effective impersonators.”

Karkat takes a deep, slow breath. He can feel the migraine coming on. Pressing the pads of his first two fingers against his vulnerable temples, he starts pressing on them, eyes squeezing shut in the way Feferi always says will give him wrinkles. He’ll molt out the fucking wrinkles. 

“Do not,” he warns, voice grave. “Underestimate someone who’s really good at human cosplay. I’ve seen some freaky close likenesses. Nothing that looked like me, but some good fucking troll makeup.”

“Oh, yeah?” The guy leans next to him, sounding vaguely amused. “What, looking like one of your less accessible buddies?”

“No, just me but bad,” he grumbles. “Like, didn’t mess with the framing of the face at all. Fucked up my hair. Didn’t do the horns right.”

“Aw, not the horns.”

“I know! Like, my horns aren’t great, but they aren’t - they aren’t just lumps! I know they’re nubby and weird and they certainly aren’t graceful or anything -”

“- but it’s still a part of you, and a part of you that matters.”

Karkat glances towards the man who leans next to him. Despite his general aura of… whatever, he sounds at least a little sympathetic. 

He doesn’t speak again before the guy does. “Like, sure, it isn’t something a lot of people notice, and when they do, it’s like, kind of to make fun of you? Like yeah, maybe it’s something you’re embarrassed about, but it’s still a part of you and you kinda like it, but the thing about society is it’s really good at making you hate things that you used to like. Like, if you aren’t flawless? Fuck you, we’ll find somebody who is and then airbrush them so then they hate themself too.”

Karkat looks at him. He looks at him for a long, long time, and then he nods. Only once, but once is enough. “Is this some kind of shitty bonding ritual for mammals? You’re gonna bleed black-pale all over me, man.”

“I don’t have crazy blood like your buddies, dude. It’s the Strider way.” he makes a fist, taps it to his chest a few times. “Boobs, guns, liquor, yeehaw. I bleed pure American red, white, and blue.”

“It sounds kind of like you should get that checked out.” Despite himself, Karkat grins a little. It’s rare he finds someone who can keep up with him. 

“No way. I’m not really a doctor guy. What if they take my balls?”

“Your what.”

“My balls. My cajones. My family jewels. My eggs to go with that sausage. I need those, Karkat. I need ‘em.”

“Why the fuck would they take your balls? Is there a human ball shortage?”

“To add to their grotesque collection.”

Karkat looks at him with an expression that must be amusing, because Strider snickers. Karkat swats in his general direction. 

“God, now I’m gonna be thinking about that for my whole interview.”

“Yeah?” Strider shoos him, and Karkat is only a little miffed about it, instead of very. How’d this fucker get on his good side? It is a mystery. “Don’t you have to go to that pretty soon?”

“I got plenty of time, it’s only -” he glances to the clock a ways down the hall. Oh. oh, it’s - he’s almost late. “Time for my fucking interview. Shit!”

“Break a leg,” Strider laughs as he rushes down the hall, fixing his jacket. “I think your crazy girltroll’s intimidating the janitorial staff!”

She was, in fact, doing that thing. And yeah, he’s gotta yell at her, and Eridan says some shit that is just a hair off horribly xenophobic on camera, and Vriska steals the spotlight as usual, but all in all, Karkat finds himself having a better time than he thought. Maybe he just relaxed a little beforehand. Who knows. He sure as hell doesn’t.

___

Karkat and Strider keep finding each other. His full name is Dave Strider, and he’s a massive jagoff. However, he can keep up with Karkat, and he’s irritatingly fun to be around. So sometimes, when they meet up, Strider gets to stay with him awhile. Until Karkat boots him, that is.

Karkat gets some benefits out of it. He gets to watch some flicks early, he gets the ear of a human who doesn’t treat him like a god or a monster, and… well, he gets to be around Strider. 

Maybe that’s a benefit in itself.

As time goes on, they grow a little closer. Watch-movies-on-call close. Dave and Karkat mutually agree that being on camera when they don’t want to be sucks ass, and so they voice chat, pressing play on stuff at the same time (Karkat couldn’t figure out how to use the streaming services available here, to his own shameful chagrin and Strider’s extreme amusement) and bothering each other about it.

They actually ended up going to one of his premieres, too. Humans can kind of just invite whoever they want regardless of caste, because they don’t really have them the same way trolls do. So when twelve invitations show up, it’s… pretty much agreed upon that they’re going.

The experience is pretty great, honestly. The acting is… a little unsettling. There’s a surprising amount of alien kissing in it - if you can even call them aliens. That’s just humans in badly sealed greasepaint. The movie’s a travesty. Karkat loves it.

After conferring with his groupmates, Karkat gets them to let the guy come backstage for a concert or two. The experience is, obviously, going to be hellish, but that’s fine. everything’s hellish when it involves twelve trolls. Adding Strider can’t make it any worse, right?  
  
(It’s so much worse. It gets so much worse. They are fined _heavily_ for the damage to the hotel room, but in the end, even Gamzee says Karkat can bring him around again. And he does, and then it’s even worse that time. Oh, joy of joys.)

But hey, things are… actually going well for him. Karkat finds himself thinking about Strider more often - and certainly more often than he _should_. Maybe this could be something.

He hopes it isn’t. They do, after all, still have a job to do.

Unfortunately, Strider doesn’t fit into that particular plan. So Karkat pretends it isn’t there, and as long as he doesn’t think about it, it effectively isn’t.

__

Strider’s not in his next concert, but he’s outside of it. Karkat knows because he saw him out the window and ducked out to see what he was doing.

Yeah, that’s weird. He's made his peace with it. Sometimes you gotta do some whack shit. It’s like Troll Will Smith says, you just - you just gotta follow your heart, right? And Karkat’s pusher is telling him to go out and see him, and hell with the consequences. Now, obviously, Karkat’s thinkpan is currently screeching at him about how stupid this is, about how he doesn’t even like the guy, and how he’s definitely going to get human assasinated and then used for weird experiments - but the thing about that is that if you spend the first eight sweeps of your life certain you’re going to die the minute anyone finds out who and what you really are, fear of death stops packing so much of a punch. 

Strider’s leaning on the wall, talking almost idly into his human palmhusk. It doesn’t even grab his face so he’s got a hand free. So inefficient. Now, much less creepy, sure, but inefficient.

“Yeah, it was a good show,” he laughs, and Karkat’s surprised by how loose his voice is. He must modulate himself pretty hard every time Karkat sees him, because he’s so relaxed Karkat thinks he might melt into human noodles. “They’re talented, that’s why they’re here, dude.” A pause. Karkat uses the time to preen quietly. He’s super talented, obviously, but he does like to hear it. “No, no luck. Get off my ass! I say one alien has a nice ass, I’m a traitor to the goddamn resistance -”

“What the fuck,” Karkat says, because he can’t keep his mouth shut. “Resistance?”

Strider, apparently, has mad hops. The man jumps about six feet in the air, fumbling with his palmhusk and swearing so fast Karkat can barely hear it. He’s quicker than Sollux when he’s fucking manic, what in the name of whatever dark gods are out there is going on with this human freak?

“Haha holy shit, hey, I was talking about you just now,” Strider says, whirling around to face Karkat. His glass-faced palmhusk has absolutely shattered on the concrete. Poor dude, those look really fiddly to make, and they’re not even biotech so you can’t regrow them. “It’s - it’s just hard to resist that ass, you know? It’s very well sculpted. Who’s your designer? Louis Vutton? Because you need a bag for that… dump truck. Ass. You need it to hold the ass. Because it can’t - I’m sure it’s firm but there’s just a volume to muscle ratio there. Gotta be wires holding that up.”

“Stop talking about my ass that way, or I’ll slice my own bulge off, shortly before yours,” Karkat says. A lesser troll would be lost for words after a - truly pathetic display like that. However, Karkat’s the leader for a reason, even if Feferi leads on paper. “Cut the shit, Strider. Were you getting close to me, to, what. Kill the Heiress? Because you aren’t even supposed to know she’s the fucking Heiress. Who’s the leak?”

“That raises so many more questions I really want to ask,” Strider says, but Karkat’s started to close the distance and his legs are pinwheeling to take him back at the same speed. He nearly trips over the curb.

“I don’t give a fuck. I thought I was being paranoid when I was worrying about fucking human assassination! Whose payroll are you on? HIC isn’t supposed to go for her until her fucking adult molt!”

“Wait, the Idolwitch?” The tweak in his voice is nearly comical. 

Both Karkat and Strider stop walking. After a moment of consideration, Karkat takes one more step, snagging his stupid tie and dragging him in to growl in his face. “You have some explaining to do.”

Strider doesn’t smile, but he easily dances around doing any of the explaining. “Lightning round?”  
  
Karkat glances down the dingy alley. “Not here for fucking sure. Look, nooksniffer, you’re either a danger to my friends or a huge liability, and either way, I’m not letting you walk away after whatever the hell that ass soliloquy was.”

He hooks a thumb over his shoulder. The sudden movement has Karkat’s finger twitching for his captchalogued sickles, but he doesn’t draw them just yet. He’s probably quicker than this slender little human. He’s trained for war, like all trolls. All humans train for is human college.

“I have a place down the street?”

“Let’s not _Your Place or Mine, a Rollicking Trollian Escapade Between Two Star-Crossed Bluebloods, One Nearly Indigo, Leading to Raunchy Dialogue, Excessive Humor, and Several Ludicrous Miscommunications_ this, you most untrustworthy of buddies. Hotel.” 

___

So, Dave knew he was one twelfth of a preliminary invasion force. 

Snacking on a handful of peanuts and chocolate (Karkat deserves a buzz), Karkat pries every last detail he can out of the guy. As he said, he’s definitely part of some kind of resistance cell, which is buck fucking wild, and he’s also a big stupid idiot. That isn’t something he told Karkat, Karkat just inferred it through context clues and also how he’s a little hurt.

It’d be stupid to have hurt feelings about this. So what if Dave - if Strider was using him to get information on the invasion forces? To… find troll weaknesses? It didn’t matter. It would be absolutely mega stupid to be hurt by it.

Karkat is, as always, absolutely mega stupid.

He levels the curve of his sickle at where he’s set Dave in the corner of the room, chair diagonal so only a small space is behind it. He isn't tied down - it wouldn't do any good to a bladekind user - but he's not moved anyway. 

“And how long have people known?”

Strider wrings his hands. “Uh - instantly, pretty much. Like, no offense, but you guys are pretty clearly militant if you know where to look.”

“Eridan.”

“Yeah. Among other things.” He bows his head. “Just - one of my buddies. Got him alone.”

“Sugar?”

“Barely needed it. That guy’s memorized pretty much every military action since you started spacefaring, and Rose is great at making people talk.” A hesitation. “In like, a weird psychoterrorist way, not a torture way.”

“And he'll share every bit of it without thinking twice, because he's so fucking superior.” Karkat flips the sickle in his hand, expertly, and braces its inner curve against the column of Strider’s throat. Betrayal still burns hot in the back of his mind, a wall between Karkat and the straight sorrow he's still feeling. He trusted this stupid human, and look where it fucking got him. “Why are you telling me this?”

Strider tilts his chin up - likely not finding it particularly clever to test the blade with his vulnerable human throat. Skin splits easily against blades, Karkat’s seen. He doesn't want to hurt him, but he. He has to. To protect the Empire.

“I don't think you want to do it.”

Karkat goes rigid. He shows his disgustingly blunt teeth (Feferi’s are gorgeous, sharp as needles) and hisses, somewhere in the back of his throat. 

Strider reaches up. Karkat can't make himself move, so he folds his hand over Karkat’s, and the blade starts to shake. It must be Strider shaking it. It's got to be.

“Karkat,” he says, “you don't have to do this.”

He drops the sickle. Some sick human trickery, it has to be. Earth’s got some wild shit on it.

“Karkat. Hey, c’mon.” When did he say Dave could get up? When did he sit down? He doesn't even know. “I mean, I - I don't wanna get subsumed by the fucking Idolwitch, but I don't think you want to do it either. Look at me.” He can't. “Karkat. Please.”

Something in his voice, in the way he says it, tricks Karkat into thinking he means it. He's - he's just the stupidest troll in the world, but. For a moment, just a moment, he believes Dave. So he lifts his head and looks at him, like he asked.

Strider passes him the sickle with soft hands. He holds it like a lifeline, leaning back a little on the bed, uncertain. He doesn't know what to do - what he should do.

“We have a plan,” Strider says. “Well. We don't, but we can make one. Just -” his voice cracks. “Just don't make me -”

“Strider.” Karkat’s hand is on Dave’s shoulder. He takes a deep, shuddery breath. “Dave. I don't want to do this.”

He probably never has. This is their first assignment, and he's only on it because he's got the same color as the humans on this stupid planet. He could have been culled. Should have been, instead. But a stroke of luck sent him here, and now he's sitting here with Strider, the first person who's really understood him, even if they did have a rocky fucking start. He thought he gave a damn for awhile there.

They sit in silence, for awhile. Karkat has nothing else he can say - fear and anxiety choke him, a noose strangling his voice, and Strider doesn’t seem to have any ideas for soothing words. It’s probably for the best. Karkat might bite his face off if the fucker tried.

“... I’m sorry,” Strider says. Karkat doesn’t look at him. “I couldn’t - I didn’t know how to say it, I didn’t know if you. I didn’t know fuck all, honestly. I was a llama driving a car, bleating helplessly as I careened towards the cliff of inevitable confrontation.”

“How to say what? You’re part of a resistance movement tailored specifically towards getting as much information out of me as possible? I mean, you could just say that. I said it. It’s not that fucking hard.”

“You know what I mean, Karkat. I didn’t…. Want you to think it wasn’t real.” Karkat can practically hear Dave’s anxieties catch up with him. “I mean, it probably - it was kind of dumb. It was really dumb, actually, to - to get all caught up in this, I mean, I thought about just. Leaving the resistance, once, because you - I mean, if trolls are like you, it can’t be, that bad, right? You’re a cool guy. Uh. Very hot guy. Actually. You’re both - temperatures. I’m an idiot.”

“You are,” Karkat says, feeling a quiet pity for the man who can’t stop shoving his foot in his fat fucking mouth. “That’s okay. You can be an idiot. I’m - I’m fucking stupid too.”

“What do you -”

Karkat kisses him. 

It’s quick, chaste, barely even a touch, but it’s a kiss. Not a bad first one. He clears his throat. “We’re both stupid, you pathetic sack of shit,” he mutters. “Let’s work on a plan.”

Dave nods like his head’s on a string. “Yes. Yep, uh-huh. Hey, can I have -”

“We have to save your shitty world.”

“Okay, just wondering.”

__

_Who Run the World_ plays loud enough to make Karkat jump. This is it. This is as much “it” as it’s ever going to be. They get one chance, and this is it.

Feferi looks at him. He nods, and she flicks her thumb to put the call on the biggest screen they have.

She sits there, screen a little jittery, but far from affected by it. The softening filter over her resplendent form only serves to make Her Imperious Condescension more beautiful, an ethereal, untouchable grace matched only by the sheer malice that rolls off her in person. Her plump lips shine in the light, makeup perfect to make them look inviting in a way that’s nearly frightening, and her curves are accentuated by the bodysuit she wears - displaying her royal sign with her entire body. She blinks, once, and leans heavy to one side, legs crossed at the knee.

“The shell is going on, my gulls and buoys? You’ve missed…” The way her voice trails off means she’s seen it. Karkat can see the reflection in her massive eyes. The _destruction._

Behind them, the wall has crumbled away. The city itself is _gone,_ the consequence of a bomb large enough to level half a country being set off miles away. Inference says this isn’t the only place it’s happening. There are bodies on the road. There are bodies in the windows. As he watches the reflection in her eyes, a human goes to their knees in the street and begins to sob.

Red spills over his lips as he smiles. “They won,” he says, voice a little shaky. “They - found out. Empress, we’re -”

“Quiet, trash!” He sees stars. Karkat stumbles forward, Eridan’s backhand only enhanced by his heavy rings. “Fuckin’ traitorous - Empress, he was commiseratin’ w’the enemy, as it were. Some poppycock about bloodbonds.”

The Condesce leans forward. Karkat can barely make out her movements through blurry eyes. He takes a step - trips over Nepeta’s body. She’s motionless, next to Equius, who he lands on. Blue and green swirl on his hands. 

“I.” His voice cracks, and he squeezes his eyes shut. Karkat can’t bring himself to speak. Fear grips his throat, as strong as Vriska’s graspers. He couldn’t say anything if he wanted to. Ash settles on his shoulders, nearly burning him with its subdued heat. Evidence of destruction long enough ago for the effects to start settling down. Karkat chokes on it.

The rumble of collapsing rubble washes over him. A building breaks, somewhere in the distance. Sickly-sweet scents mix with the ash in his sniffer, and Karkat nearly vomits. It’s disgusting. It’s painful.

“You’re tellin’ me you forked up?” he doesn’t have to look up at her to picture it. Her knuckles go pink around the shaft of her culling fork. She sneers, a perfect curl of the lip. The first time he saw it burned it into his brain - Karkat can’t help but remember it. He’d love to forget, but the bone-chilling terror of _HIC’s disdain_ is something a troll can’t shake. Her very presence… it shines through even over the airwaves. “You forked the easiest fishion I’ve ever given?”

“My Empress!” Eridan falls to his knees, the wet crunch of bloody sand under him making Karkat wince. He hears Terezi step back, hiss under her breath. “They - they didn’t attack _us!_ They attacked _everything!_ They’ve destroyed themselves!”

A hot flash against Karkat’s back. He whips his head around, seeing Kanaya do the same. Her glow kicks up high enough to nearly outdo the explosion in the distance - which he can’t actually see. The floodlight of it blinds him.

“Don’t blame us for this!!!!!!!!” Vriska squawks, backpedaling away from the burst of dust and horror, shockwave rapidly approaching, if the rumble of the ground is any indication. He feels a rock bounce onto his hand. “I did everything I should have!”

“Oh, fuck off,” Sollux says, his flat delivery - well, it’s pretty much what they expected of Sollux. “They cut off their aural clots to spite their face. Killed everything instead of letting us have it.” There’s a wet sound, as his skin begins to slough from his body. “We’re dying here!”

“I won’t die here!” Eridan howls, as the shockwave overtakes them. Feferi screams. 

A few rhythmic pops, and their palmhusks are all obliterated. Exploding like a nibblebeastluses someone squeezed too hard. It is…. Over.

.

“Equihiss!” Nepeta growls, scrambling up from under Karkat, who’s too terrified to move. “I can’t believe you made me stray out of this!”

“If I am not permitted to say my piece,” says Equius, from under a pile of… weird flesh, “you will also have to lay down with me.”

“Yeah,” Sollux snickers, shaking off half a trash bag and his beginning molt, “plus, he’s too stupid to do it right.”

Equius jackknifes up, just as Strider calls out, “Alright, that’s a wrap!”

Eridan nearly cries. “Oh, I did amazing.”

“You sold it pretty well, grumpygills,” Feferi says. “I acshoaly did get scared at the end! It sounded very reel.”

“We’re pretty good at what we do,” Strider says, chest puffed out like he’s a preening featherbeast. “It’s super lucky I’ve been making stupid propoganda films for basically a bajillion years. We had easy footage for the background shots.”

“Lighting looked great, too.” Tavros clears his throat. “Um, I was - I was impressed.”

“I couldn’t see shit,” Karkat says, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth. Fake blood and debris coat him like a drybrush. He wants to throw up, but mostly, he wants to shower. “Shone right in my eyes. Eridan physically hit me, too.”

“I had to make it look believable, Kar!”

Karkat drops it, because he’s a good person and he’s still a little too shaken. They did it. They… actually did it. They did it with cheesy fucking set makeup and editing together two bad movies for a background shot. They did it with lighting effects and performing the only way they knew how - as a group. As one.

And they did it with Strider and his team.

“Squibs worked,” reports the woman on computers, her white, furry ears poking out of her mane of hair. Most trollian hair he’s ever seen on a person. “The husks all died at the same time, with a .002% margin of error, specifically for the one transmitting. If they check it, it’ll be identical to being obliterated by a supermassive blast!” She claps. Karkat claps too, out of obligation. Pale pressure goes crazy around humans. “And there’s no other operatives on Earth?”

“None,” Feferi reports. Kanaya’s hand finds the back of Karkat’s neck, and he nearly melts as she pulls off a strip of fake blood and dust tape. “We’re an advance team. I’m out of her hair out here.”

“As far as she knows,” Eridan crows, drunk on performance. He always got like this after concerts and interviews, but Karkat thinks maybe he isn’t realizing the seriousness of the situation yet. They can never go back unless it’s like, the last stage before the battle between Feferi and the Condesce, and even then… Karkat won’t be welcome. Doesn’t that fuck with him? “By the time she realizes it was all a setup, Feferi will be in her adult molt and trained to kill!”

“I’m not wading that long, sealy,” Feferi chuckles. Karkat puts his hands over his ears so he doesn’t have to hear Eridan and Equius both squawk as one. 

Convincing them all had been a hassle, but each and every one of them had things they wanted changed, and Feferi would be a better Empress than HIC ever was. With her backing behind the plan, it had been almost surprisingly fast. Eridan fell in place, and then Vriska, and with the two highblood powerhouses behind the idea, and Gamzee willing to go wherever Karkat and Tavros did, Equius had gone with it too. Kanaya had never been a problem. Terezi leapt at the idea. Aradia and Sollux had a lot to gain and not much to lose. And Nepeta - well, if you listen to her, she did it for love.

Which is dumb. There wasn’t any love involved in the plan. Just -

“Hey.” Strider’s voice is quiet. Karkat turns to face him, ears half-perked. He wants to hear, but he’s bone tired. “I - you did great out there. You guys… really know how to perform.”

“We always have.” Karkat rubs the back of his grungy neck. “We couldn’t have done it without you and your team of paranoid freakshows.”

“Is it paranoia if you’re right?”

“You think I fucking know? I’m worse than the dog girl.”

A hand plants itself in Karkat’s back, and he stumbles forward. Before either can think about it, Karkat braces his hands on Dave’s front, and Dave catches him by the waist. They stare at each other, at once too close and too far away.

The moment stretches for eternity. Strider’s - fuck it, Karkat thinks of him as _Dave_ now, there’s no avoiding it anymore. There’s no avoiding any of it.

Karkat kisses him.

His idol group, arguing behind him, stops to catcall and squeal, and Nepeta nearly leaps on Kanaya just behind. Karkat doesn’t think about any of it. He just files it away, somewhere in the back of his mind, and kisses like a pop star.


End file.
